$5,000 per day = 10 ER contracts @ +5pts That is no big deal in a $50,000 account balance, when a given session has normal to high volatility or range. A big deal is having your best month ever, followed by increasingly bigger months. Outlier days where we cannot make a mistake and price action is highly favorable are nice, but a steady living is not built on those. Such glory days help pad the account, for sure. That said, it's the slow grind with more winning days than not, bigger wins than losses which make up consistently successful months. Keep your eye on the month... not any given day. In this profession, no single day can make a career, but one terrible day can easily end a career :>) Congrats on your steps to success!
i would say thats a great day on a $200k account. much less than that though i would have to start to question your risk management strategy.
I agree with the gentleman who suggested "blowup alert" coming ... more than the other gentleman who suggested trading 10 contracts at a time is no big deal unless one has really really "mastered" the market they are trading or found an "edge" that is working enough to do size plus that the market they are trading allows them to do size and that the "dark side" does not attempt to crush them for doing that size ... then better to grind it out and be happy they are staying positive every day or week on the road to market riches ( whatever that means )
<i>"coming ... more than the other gentleman who suggested trading 10 contracts at a time is no big deal"</i> A skilled emini trader can handle one contract per $5k balance. That is pretty much the same thing prop guys are doing with their $100k balance pushing several million $$ working capital. Key word is "skilled". My initial stop on an ER trade is -$150 per contract, -$100 per contract ES. That is risking -2% of account balance in ES, -3% of balance in ER per trade. Expected average profit / loss ratio is 2/1 balanced over time. If an emini trader does not have comparable skill to manage account balance = trades like that, they should still be on sim trading (not one dime of real cash) until the mechanics are correct. Otherwise, a $3mil account balance will not be enough to avoid inevitable loss.
hi austin ... I agree with you except that there is alot less pressure in trading once contract than 10 no matter what the market
For sure, Seth! We're on the same page there :>) I only meant to say that a fixed dollar goal like $5,000 daily is not the right brass ring. Depending on the trader, symbol and account balance it might be a personal record day, or one profitable trade turned. The correct fixation is month over month performance. When a personal record month is followed soon by another, we're on the right track. I myself place emphasis on quarterly performance and yearly performance... daily performance evaluation is too much self-imposed pressure for me.
Not really. Let's say you have 10K in the account and trade 1 contract. Now let's say you have 100K account and trade 10 contracts. Nothing changed, assuming you did not start with 100K account. As long as trading on 1 contract is mastered, all that remains is to gradually increase size, as capital increases, to the max # that market liquidity can handle. Regards, redduke